


Intertwine

by lightningwaltz



Category: Hakuouki
Genre: F/M, Hand Jobs, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Mid-Canon, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 13:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13660278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: Loving someone is not the same as knowing how to be alone with them.[Mid-canon fic set immediately after their first kiss.]





	Intertwine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kazesuke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazesuke/gifts).



> Hello, blue_eyesgirl_fic!
> 
> Chizuru and Saito's route is an interesting one. As you noted, they get easily flustered and embarrassed around each other. This intrigues me since, in Saito's route, they have this fairly passionate declaration of love (and intent to die together, if need be.) After that they immediately spend quite a few days alone together, camping and traveling to their destination. I wonder a lot about that time period, since they go from pining and having these philosophical discussions during their brief times alone ... to only getting to be around each other. I imagine the transition from friends to lovers might have had some awkward moments. And yet, they have some moments of being relatively straightforward about their physical attraction to each other. Case in point; Saito seems relatively at ease with the blood drinking. The two of them even turn it into a positive thing with him more or less kissing her ear, and her enjoying it. 
> 
> This is all a long way of saying I kind of ran with your prompt about them "Looking after one another. Learning to live together." I wanted to explore the likely awkwardness, but also their willingness to experiment and explore and find pleasure in their situation.

Loving someone is not the same as knowing how to be alone with them. 

When they stop kissing, Chizuru discovers that a cloud has veiled the moon. Saito’s fingers rest against the sides of her face, and his eyes have caught the reflection of starlight. She looks for constellations. She looks for Saito, but he’s just a silhouette. He breathes like a man who has had to run from one side of the city to the other, and it’s a melody that slips into the wind as whispers through the leaves. Tree bark creaks and groans, but it doesn’t drown out the chirruping of various insects. The forest is utterly alive, and utterly indifferent. Chizuru could lose sight of that fact while in a group, but not when they are the only people for miles. 

Chizuru’s lips sting, like something has scraped all the dead skin away. Saito has barely touched her, but the rest of her body feels rough. Newly-made. Like you could touch her anywhere, and your hands would come away streaked with blood. She tilts up until their lips meet, and he sighs like someone permitted to rest after arduous exercise. She realizes she’s never heard him make that sound before. Not until breathing her in. 

Neither of them is in the habit of being self-indulgent, but this is fueled by panic as much as desire. If they kiss, they can’t speak. If they kiss, the next day won’t come. 

Time is still drifting on. Chizuru opens her eyes, and realizes she can see Saito’s face again. The moon has scraped through the clouds. When she looks up, the clouds are like wisps of fabric melting into colorless flame.

“We need to find a clearing to spend the night.” Dirt crunches beneath Saito’s feet as he takes a step back. 

_Should I hold his hand?_

Couples embraced. They stroked each other’s hair, patted each other on the back, ran their fingers over anything they could touch. It would be so easy. She’d reach out a few inches, angle her wrist a bit, and press their palms together. 

Instead, they walk side-by-side further into the woods. Chizuru’s shoulder bumps his arm once or twice, but those are the only times they happen to touch. For some reason he apologizes to her every single time, like he’d stepped on her foot. He deems an area acceptable, talking- almost to himself- about how it’s sufficiently shielded from the pathway, and the ground is flat enough to sleep on. 

She clears her throat. “Firewood?” Chizuru’s first words since they started kissing. 

Saito just looks at her, like he’s forgotten how to speak. 

“I meant, should I go look for firewood?” Chizuru is good at finding kindling, even after rainfall or dew. Saito is good at starting fires (there is a legendary story about him coaxing flames by reflecting sunlight through a thin piece of ice. She’s not sure that’s actually true.) 

“Ah, I see. A good question. I believe it’s late and it’s been an eventful day. I had been thinking of eating something cold and then attempting sleep.” The words have all the well-smoothed polish of someone who had been making plans for hours. For days. Chizuru’s heart plunges into his stomach at the thought of Saito parting ways from Hijikata, sitting alone in the forest, with only the night-time sky for company. 

“Eating just before bed is bad for digestion.” She’s not any better at this than Saito.

“We don’t have to sleep immediately. We still need set up camp.”

They eat their bland and easily transportable dinner in the darkness. They don’t touch and they don’t speak. Then Chizuru gathers handful after handful of pine needles to cushion their bodies, a few of them pricking her skin. Saito works on the tent, his shadow weaving long between the trees.

 _Couples sleep together._

Not Saito and Chizuru. They don’t hold each other, don’t touch, don’t whisper hopes for pleasant dreams. They didn’t even lie together with the bored disdain of long-married incompatible partners. Their impromptu mattress smells like the essence of the forest, though, and it fills her nose as she breathes. Her hammering heart stops leaving bruises in its wake. 

In recent months, they had never struggled to speak while alone. During moments of boredom or protracted worry, Chizuru has had a habit of returning to those memories. Staring into the sharp brightness of a blade together. A strong, thin hand on her face. Saito’s bloodied lips lingering over her newly healed skin. She can’t revisit these incidents too many times. Chizuru worries that it would be like polishing fine metal too many times; it might actually tarnish and dull everything that matters. 

She reminisces on those things now, though. Those times had been strangely comfortable and easy. Perhaps the scarcity of their meetings had made the two of them bold. It’s easy to be fearless with your heart when each encounter might be the last one. 

And it’s easy to be nervous when laying the foundation for a life together. It doesn’t seem to matter if that lifetime is a matter of decades or a matter of hours. 

“I’m always surprised that pine needles can be so soft,” she says, then wonders if Saito is asleep already. 

“One or two of them might be a problem,” Saito says. The tent is small and the distance can be no more than a hand’s length. All the same, Chizuru imagines him shouting to her across a cavern. “If you get a lot of them- as you did- it clearly doesn’t seem to matter.” 

If Chizuru answers, she doesn’t remember how. Dreamless sleep intrudes, and there’s bound to be a blank in her memory. When she wakes, she knows it’s because her shivering has rattled her into consciousness. The night isn’t especially chilly, but they are without blankets, without many layers of clothes, without walls (scraps of fabric do not count.) It’s the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and radiates out. When she blinks, even her eyelashes remind her of icicle shards. 

“This will be a long night,” she whispers. Though she has a companion, she’s never been surrounded by so much darkness. 

“The nights do feel endless when dealing with discomfort, don’t they?” Saito’s voice surprises her. However, there’s something to be said for speaking into emptiness and getting a reply. For years she’s shared a building with countless people. For years she’s slept alone.

There’s a bit of rustling, and then Saito’s hand is on her shoulder. 

“May I…?” he asks.

“Yes,” Chizuru says, even though his is intention is not fully clear. Anything would be better. 

Saito wraps his arms around her, and she does the same to him. He rarely seems to be effected by the cold but, at first, she can’t say whether his body is a comfort. Nervousness pulsates from her heart, melts into her blood, heating all her limbs. His hands brush her cheek again. 

“You’re quite warm, actually,” Saito says. “Are you sick?” 

“No, not that. Not yet, anyway.” 

“Then what is it? You speak as though you have some idea.” 

Chizuru laughs, and isn’t sure why. Pressed like this together, she is able to notice Saito’s slight flinch of surprise. When he settles back against her, she more keenly aware of her breasts against his chest. The slight tangling of their legs. 

“It’s because I’m blushing, that's all,” Chizuru says when she has a proper handle on herself. 

“Are you uncomfortable?”

The question warrants more consideration than she expected. “No, I like it,” she says at last. Her face burns, still. “I just don’t know how to do this. And I’m sorry you have to tend to me.” 

“I believe it’s more common for warriors to die in the elements or from sickness than from any immediate injury. I don’t mind assisting comrades through difficult conditions. I’ve held Heisuke before, in weather like this.” 

Chizuru reaches up, tracing her fingers down the bridge of his nose, sliding over to his cheek. It’s like holding her hand out to a campfire. For some reason her eyes sting, like when the wind pushes smoke into them. The invocation of Heisuke settles heavily between the two of them. He and the others are still alive. But for how long? It’s been the implicit question for ages now. _For how long?_

No one got the ending they deserved. They just got a small amount of time on the earth, until they became a memory. 

“What don’t you know how to do?” 

_Flirt, caress, entice someone._

“Be a- a lover?” Chizuru says, scrambling for the right word. “I know all kinds of things about sex because men talk, and walls can be thin.” (Saito makes a noise Chizuru can’t decipher.) “But I don’t know how to be someone’s lover.” 

It’s amazing what she can say when she can barely see someone’s face. 

Saito is halfway on top of her, by now. His warmth is subtle, but much more substantial than the heat that comes from blushing. He strokes her hair like he never wants to stop. Like repetition might perfect this action the same way he perfected iai. Chizuru touches his back, and tries to memorize him as well.

“We have a similar problem then. I understand sex. I don’t know how to be a lover either.” 

“…But we both want to be, right?”

He nods. They’re so close their noses brush. They’re so close they might kiss. 

But they don’t. Not yet. 

_Let’s learn how to touch. Let’s learn how to be together._

Chizuru and Saito thaw and intertwine, their bodies hard and pliable all at once. She thinks of snows that melt and freeze and melt again, subject to changing temperatures. Those are always the last patches of ice to give way to spring. Their hands roam, slowly, in soothing patterns. Saito’s skin smells like pine to her. He holds her like she’s precious. Her mouth is so dry that it seems to burn her words when she speaks. Instead she takes his hand, and places his fingers behind her ear. The same spot he drank from.

“Just so you know, I actually liked it,” she forces out. “When you didn’t move away the last time.” 

“Ahhh.” It’s more of a sigh than a statement. His lips press against that patch of skin, and this time they linger. This time he moves a bit, and sucks lightly on the top of her ear. 

Chizuru slams her eyes shut, and gasps like she’s being tickled. Her nerves alight, pleasure pools below her navel. Her fingers click against his buttons, until she loosens them enough to touch a few inches of bare skin. When Saito buries his face in her neck- licking it with fastidious care- she doesn’t understand the sound she makes. Halfway between a moan and gasp. It dies out as one of his hands finds her breast, stroking it through the fabric. She doesn’t want anything to distract her from this. 

This would all be easier if they hadn’t switched to Western style of dress. Chizuru has to kick out her pants. Freeing Saito isn’t any easy. Less than a year ago they could have tugged a tie loose, and been on their way. Now it’s a matter of awkward shuffling, and shirts being left halfway on. 

Her internal complaining dies, though, once she guides Saito’s hand between her legs. His fingers are _cold_ , and she almost squeaks out a laugh. But then her warmth seems to transfer to him. He circles her clitoris again and again, in a nearly hypnotic rhythm. Until she’s panting instead. Until she’s actually biting his shoulder and getting a mouthful of fabric. 

When she takes him in her hand, her movements are tentative at first. But then she learns what he likes. He breathes out her name, kisses her hard, and slides a finger into her. At first her free hand digs into the ground, and she can feel pine needles, stones, and hard dirt below the tent fabric. Then sinks that same hand into his hair. The newly cut edges seem to sting her palm. 

When she coaxes Saito to climax, it nearly distracts Chizuru from her own body. There’s something staggering about Saito going very still, letting out a hoarse shout, and coming undone. Her own orgasm follows moments after, as the movements of his fingers make her cling to him and shatter. 

When Chizuru is able to think again, she feels something small and sharp against her thigh. At first she thinks a pebble has gotten into the tent somehow. When she reaches for it she realizes one of Saito’s buttons had been torn loose. 

Saito holds her close, and she likes being held as though he doesn’t need anything else. She notes that she’s still wearing her vest, and parts of it are sticky to her perspiration soaked chest.. Then she realizes she wouldn’t care if the sun was out and Saito could see her in such a ridiculous state. They had sworn to follow each other into war, into a likely slaughterhouse. They might die, their blood might sink into the same battlefield, and that’s the closest they will ever come to anything like a marriage. In the meantime, though, they will seek out joy. 

“I think,” she says, “that was a good start. At learning how to be lovers.” 

“Is it _really_ that nice being kissed on the ear in that fashion?” If Chizuru didn’t know better, she’d have sworn Saito is teasing her. 

Or, perhaps, fishing for compliments. That’s another surprisingly delightful possibility. 

“Hmm, let me show you.”


End file.
